


Chase the Nightmares Away

by Kivuline



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Jemma Simmons Needs a Hug, Nightmares, POV Jemma Simmons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-22
Updated: 2020-03-22
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:01:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23268883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kivuline/pseuds/Kivuline
Summary: Jemma's been back from Maveth for two months, but that doesn't stop the nightmares.
Relationships: Leo Fitz/Jemma Simmons
Comments: 6
Kudos: 62





	Chase the Nightmares Away

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rulesofthebeneath (radishphilosophy)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/radishphilosophy/gifts).



> A (late) birthday present for my friend, rulesofthebeneath (radishphilosophy)!

Jemma stared blankly at the TV, trying to process the movie. It had been two months since she’d been rescued from Maveth, but she still didn’t consider herself to be fully adjusted back. Daisy and Fitz had both helped a lot, but Jemma had quickly shot down Daisy’s suggestion of a day trip to a beach. Sand just sounded... awful honestly. Daisy had been disappointed but she could tell Fitz understood. He wasn’t quite as fond of the ocean as he once was either. 

Currently, Jemma was curled up on the couch in the lounge under her favorite blanket, having been talked into joining the rest of the team for movie night. Fitz sat at the other end of the couch, giving her space to stretch out if she wanted. Daisy was in the chair behind her, Hunter and Bobbi were curled up on the other couch with Mack lounging in the space they’d left, and May and Coulson had stayed at the table on the far side of the room, close enough to be included but far enough to talk without disturbing them. 

Jemma really appreciated that they were giving her space, the six and a half months alone made too much contact still feel overwhelming. Sounds and the general rush of things at the Playground were less distressing at least. Jemma looked up at Bobbi scoffing at one of the stunts in whatever movie. 

“There’s no way she took that blow to the head and got up that fast,” she rolled her eyes. 

“Bob, that’s not the point,” Hunter whispered. 

“I don’t care about the point, is it too much to ask for some realism in my action movies?” Bobbi sighed. 

“Don’t ask Hollywood for realism,” Daisy piped up, earning a glare from Bobbi. Daisy tossed one of the wrapped chocolates to her, and Bobbi caught it with ease, accepting it as a bribe to shut up. 

Jemma half smiled at the normalcy of it and pulled the blanket tighter around herself, yawning tiredly. She didn’t want to go to bed yet though, she wanted to stay and finish the movie. She had to. She was doing better. 

“There’s fifteen minutes left,” Fitz whispered, glancing at her with a soft smile. 

“Thank you,” Jemma smiled a little wider and turned her attention back to the screen. 

The last fifteen minutes passed quickly and Mack took charge of turning the TV and everything off while Daisy grabbed the snacks to clean up. Jemma watched the bustle contently for a moment until another yawn broke her focus. She frowned slightly but got up, shifting her grip on the blanket to keep it wrapped around her without dragging the ground. 

“Good night,” she half smiled and grabbed her phone, starting for the door. A chorus of good nights sounded behind her, but no one tried to pressure her to stay or hug her good night like they may have used to do. 

Jemma turned the flashlight on her phone on and crept down the hall to her room. There wasn’t a switch for the hall lights near the lounge and while she knew the way to her room, walking through the dark made her skin crawl now. She hated it and how jumpy she’d become. 

Despite her fears, the walk to her room was uneventful, and soon she was curled up in bed. Jemma scanned the room one last time, making sure nothing was hiding even though the logical part of her knew there was nothing there, before she closed her eyes to sleep. 

~~~~~

Jemma stood in the cave that she’d settled in, watching the sandstorm rage. She wouldn’t be going out today then. The battery on her phone had long since died, and she was making do with the abandoned supplies she’d found in the cave. NASA had sent a group her at some point, if the labels were to be believed, but she didn’t recall ever hearing about the discovery of a planet like this. Not that they couldn’t have hidden it... 

Jemma turned away from the cave entrance to go sit with her back against the wall, writing in a journal she’d found. It was the only piece of sanity she was clinging to at this point. Her notes: hopefully one day she’d discuss them with Fitz. If anyone ever found her that is... Jemma wiped a stray tear from her face and shook her head. Crying would do her no good. 

A faint clattering sounded from deeper in the cave, as if a something had kicked a rock, and Jemma flinched, setting the journal down and staring into the darkness. That was impossible. She knew there was absolutely nothing back there. She’d been here for what must be months and had explored the whole cave, finding no other signs of life. 

“There’s nothing there, Jemma, you’re just being paranoid,” she chided and reached for the journal again. She froze at a faint clicking sound and turned slowly back towards the darkness. She knew that clicking. The creatures here made that sound. But that was impossible; the cave was empty. 

The sound grew closer and Jemma tensed, reaching for the knife she always kept at her – it was gone. No knife. Jemma whimpered and peered around, desperately searching for where she’d set it down, but it seemed to have disappeared. 

“You’re hallucinating now Jemma...” she mumbled in a feeble attempt to convince herself the clicking wasn’t real as it grew closer. She turned, slowly starting to crawl towards the rest of her supplies to find the knife. It had to be here. She’d had it when she woke up. 

Jemma reached her bag and dug through it, not even caring at this point if she found the knife by cutting her hand as she tore through the bag. A little blood was worlds better than dead. Her breathing grew faster as the clicking grew ever closer, and the knife was nowhere to be found. 

The skittering steps of the creature sounded behind her and she spun, throwing whatever benign object her hand had been on. She screamed as it lunged for her and- 

Jemma awoke with a scream and bolted upright, clutching the blanket and panting. She’d almost made it two weeks without a nightmare and hadn’t considered another. Her skin felt clammy from sweat and tears streamed down her face. A broken sob escaped her and she hugged her knees, trying to stop shaking. 

Her breath caught at the sound of her floor fan, making the steady clicking noise it always had when hair or something wrapped around the blades and they needed cleaned. But the fan sounded too close to... to that... thing. Jemma lunged across the bed and reached down, turning it off firmly. She curled back up to calm down, mumbling a little to try and reassure herself. 

With the fan off, it was too quiet. The quiet was almost worse than the clicking. It drew her attention instead to the shadows on the walls. The dark, vague shapes looked distressingly menacing. Jemma scrambled off the bed, dragging the blanket with her and pressing herself against the wall, grimacing as her hair stuck to the back of her neck. She took a shaky breath only to sob again and shook her head. She couldn’t do this. Not alone. Not anymore. 

Without even a glance at the time, Jemma darted out of her room and down the hall, speeding up as the darkness closed in around her. In her panic she’d forgotten her light. She knocked on Fitz’s door with a shaky hand and clutched the blanket. It was too hot but it was her only source of comfort, a shield from the creatures. 

A moment passed with no answer and Jemma knocked again, gasping a little for air as she struggled to breathe through her sobs. Maybe she was still having a nightmare and everyone was gone and she was stuck in a never-ending cycle and she was alone and just hallucinating and never left Maveth and the last two months had been an elaborate fever dream with the nightmares being the only truth- 

“Jemma...?” a bleary-eyed Fitz squinted at her as he pulled the door open. 

She didn’t answer, barely hearing him and not seeing him through her tears. 

He reached out slowly and carefully took her hand, causing her to flinch and step back. She looked up, eyes bloodshot from crying, and launched herself into his arms, her words incoherent as they were broken by sobs and hiccups. 

“Jems?” Fitz stumbled back but steadied himself and held her tightly. 

Jemma gave up on speaking and hid her face in his shoulder, the blanket dropped and abandoned as she clung to him instead. She shook as she breathed in deeply, desperately trying to ground herself in the familiar scent of Fitz. 

“You wanna sit?” he tried, and felt her nod. He reached out and carefully pushed the door shut, not wanting her to wake anyone else if she kept crying, and guided her to sit on the bed. She immediately crawled into his lap, hiding her face again. 

Fitz watched her sadly, torn between being happy that she trusted him enough to come to him like this and feeling absolutely shattered that she was like this at all. She deserved so much better than what she went through... He started to rub small circles on her back and hummed quietly, waiting for her to calm down. He hadn’t seen her like this since she jumped from the Bus, she’d had a breakdown that night when it fully hit her what would have happened if no one saved her. 

Jemma wasn’t sure how much time passed but she eventually calmed down enough to stop crying and lifted her head, wincing at the wet spot on his shirt from her tears. She sniffled and stared at his chest, unwilling to meet his eyes. 

“S-sorry...” she whimpered, her voice barely above a whisper as it cracked. 

“Hey... you don’t have to apologize, I’ve got you, it’s ok,” he watched her worriedly, silently pleading with her to look up at him. When she doesn’t, he moves one of his hands from her waist and gently places a finger under her chin, lifting her head so her eyes meet his. 

“Wh-what...?” Jemma mumbled; tears still shone in her eyes and it made her vision blurry. 

“You’re safe with me, do you feel up to talking about it?” Fitz half smiled and moved his hand back to her waist, helping support her. 

Jemma opened her mouth to speak but quickly shut it and shook her head. Her hands had started to tremble again. “N-not yet... I-I'm s-sorry for w-waking you u-up...” 

“It’s ok, Jemma, I’d much rather be woken up than you go through this on your own. You aren’t alone anymore,” he reached up to brush a piece of hair away from where it had stuck to her face from the tears. 

“R-really?” 

“Of course,” Fitz nodded, holding her gaze. 

Jemma cracked a halfhearted smile at that and shifted in his lap to rest her head on his shoulder in a way that she could still see him if she tried. “Sorry I’m all gross...” 

“I’ve seen you way worse from things grosser than just sweat, remember when that dissection went wrong and you were covered in blood?” Fitz teased, hoping to draw a laugh and cheer her up a little. 

Jemma snorted and nodded, covering her mouth as she laughed. “It was in my hair and I smelled for days, it was awful!” 

“Imagine being the one stuck in a lab with you,” Fitz laughed. 

“Hey! You chose to be stuck in the lab with me!” Jemma protested, glaring at him for a moment before bursting back into laughter. 

“We had a project to finish!” 

“We were way ahead!” 

“I still didn’t want you to feel lonely or like no one cared,” Fitz shrugged as their laughter died down. 

Jemma looked down again “th-that’s kinda what the nightmare was... I keep having these nightmares that I’m back in that bloody cave, alone, and you never found me and... and then sometimes one of those creatures comes and tries to kill me and other times I’m just alone... And then I got really scared that the nightmares were real and this was all a dream and I was still stuck there and just going insane a-and...” her voice cracked and she closed her eyes. 

“You aren’t insane, and you aren’t on Maveth. You’re safe, here with the team,” Fitz insisted. “What can I do to help?” 

“D-do? I... you don’t have to do anything, I-” Jemma’s gaze drifted to the clock in his room and her eyes widened at the time. “Fitz it’s three in the morning! I’m sorry I-I should go...” she started to get up but her hands had immediately started to shake again. 

“Jems, it’s alright, really. I... Do you want to stay?” Fitz took her hands and she stopped, looking up at him uncertainly. “You can go get clean pajamas if you want, or borrow some of mine, but you can stay, if you want, if it would help.” 

“You sure...?” 

“I’m sure,” Fitz offered a soft smile and squeezed her hands gently. 

“I’d like that...” she admitted, voice barely above a whisper. 

She moved out of his lap to let him up as he went to the nightstand and opened a drawer. He pulled out a set of pajamas from the top and she giggled a little when she recognized them as a set she’d gotten him as part of a birthday present. The pants were a light grey color with little monkeys on them in various poses and the shirt was white with a monkey surrounded by bananas in the middle. They’d partially been a joke, but he wore them often and must have just washed them a couple days ago. 

“Thank you... I’ll be right back,” Jemma took them with a smile and went into the bathroom to change and clean her face. 

Fitz set about straightening a few things, admittedly a little embarrassed by the state of his room even though there were far more important things to worry about. He looked up when the bathroom door opened and smiled, she looked absolutely adorable in the monkey pajamas. 

Jemma smiled back, feeling a little better now that she wasn’t alone and had stopped crying. She sat on the edge of the bed, toying with the drawstring of the pants, unsure of what to do. He’d told her she could stay but she didn’t want to invade his space and she still felt a bit guilty for waking him so early and clinging to him. Her blanket, abandoned by the door, caught her eye and she got back up to grab it, carefully folding it and setting it next to the bed. 

“Jems?” Fitz called gently from the other side of the bed as he pulled the covers back. “You ok?” 

“I think I will be,” she nodded, pulling the covers back on her side and crawling into bed. 

Fitz laid down next to her and half smiled, “thank you for trusting me.” 

“Thank you for... well... all of this,” Jemma smiled back and curled up against him. 

“I’ll always be here to chase the nightmares away, as long as you need me.” Fitz smiled and wrapped an arm around her, holding her close since that seemed to be where she wanted to be. 

“Fitz...?” Jemma mumbled a moment later, not opening her eyes. 

“Yea?” 

“Did you still want to get dinner with me... just us?” 

“I’d love that.” 

“How’s tonight sound?” 

“Sounds perfect,” Fitz smiled, pressing a gentle kiss to her forehead. 

Jemma smiled and snuggled closer, already starting to drift off again. She was safe, and more importantly, she wasn’t alone. She had Fitz.

**Author's Note:**

> I might add a chapter later, but there's no promises on that I hope you liked it!


End file.
